1960's The Arts | Hendrix, Jimi 1942-1970

ROCK GUITARIST

A Great Rock Guitarist.

Jimi Hendrix was born James Marshall Hendrix in Seattle. He taught himself to play by listening to blues recordings; left-handed, he used a re-strung right-handed guitar. He became known in the late 1960s for doing even stranger things with the instrument, such as playing it be-hind his back, playing it with his teeth, and setting it on fire. At times his stage pyromania overshadowed his musical pyrotechnics, but he is now recognized as perhaps the most influential rock guitarist in history.

Play Fast, Die Young.

Hendrix began his career as a studio musician in the early 1960s and formed his own band in 1965. The following year he created a new band, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and started to form a new sound, called acid rock, that employed intentional feed-back and other deliberate distortions. His stage antics rather than his music gained him notoriety at the 1967...